The Expression of Need

The influence of the meditation last week continues to blight my existence as long veiled truths keep coming to bite me in the bum.

Thankfully, the emotions have died down over Lachlan. Look at it, feel it, move on. It's just emotion, it's not going to kill me. Breathe and work through it.

It worked - and by the next day, things were back on track.

Yet the unveilings keep happening - each with very different perceptions. And very different pains.

It's made it interesting.

Compounding everything is my current work situation. Great team but a rather stressful role - with moving goalposts and plates to spin to keep in the air. I get in just before nine most mornings and leave around 5.30 pm, exhausted. I don't get out for lunch much, normally having to go to meetings around that time. It's a short term gig at the moment. I'm fine with this, but I've made a stand - Friday is the day I go out for lunch.

Meeting friends for lunch is important to me - it's how I maintain friendships, catch up on gossip and unwind during the day. At my last job I was known as Lady Lunchalot. In this job, not so much.

So Friday I met up with my old podmate, Pip. Pip and I have lunch at the same place once a month. He tells me about how the old company is going, how he takes his daughters to ballet on Saturday and how he wants to go sailing more. I tell him about my jobs, the cats I'm sitting and what I'm up to with running. Pip's great. We both like that we get each other out of the office  - even if it is once a month.

Friday's lunch was no different other than I kept running into people on the way to, during lunch and on the way back from the office. I ran into:

At our lunch spot, an old colleague who I chat with regularly
A girl who used to go to dream group
My favorite subject message expert from Sparks and Ladders
Another favorite developer from a few jobs back who reminds me of a Canadian Mountie
An old boss who I was surprised said hello
Another old boss who seemed just as frazzled as I was

This was all in the space of an hour. What is the universe telling me? That I should get out more?

The other eye opening time came when I sat and talked to a client this evening. Tarot can do this to you - open your eyes to things - normally when you'd rather stay blissfully unaware of things.

We talked about all sorts of things. My weekend in the Gold Coast with the girls came up.

"Weren't you scared? You, around eight other women - sounds like your hell" she asked.
"Yep, but it was a nurturing weekend. We talked and talked - I'm not used to talking like that."
"Were you surprised by anything?"
"Yes. What is it about us not being able to express need?" I asked her.
"How do you mean?"
"We don't know how to express what we need. We can talk about what we want, and what we dream about, but not what we really need."
"How so?"

I told her of the time I spent with one of the girls in the house. We talked a lot about her mother's passing - bonding in a way that you can only bond with somebody who knows what it feels like to lose a parent. There was a lot to talk about - not for me, but for my friend, who was still working out what loss is all about. I listened. And asked a lot of open questions, hoping that she would talk. Which she did. By the end of the weekend the light was beginning to creep back into her eyes.

"Didn't you find that exhausting?"
"No." I replied.
"Do you rescue everybody? You're sitting here rescuing me." said my client.
"I'm working with you." I told her. "This is a privilege."
"And as for your friend up at the Gold Coast?"
"Also a privilege. But there was something far more. I was just being the friend to her that I wish I had around when I was going through the same thing."

I kept my tears for after my client left.

Just as my friend is finding - expressing the need for comfort and support is sometimes impossible.

We can express the need for food or shelter easily enough - yet when it comes to say that you need comfort or support, we clam up. And in my case - I used to eat the emotions. Some people take drugs or drink. Others find other outlets.

But why is it so hard to express this basic human need?

I've been pondering this ever since. Why is it when it comes to asking for support and comfort I clam up? Why is it I loathe asking for help? I remember going in for surgery a few years ago and hating having to ask for help. My friends were marvelous, but there was something in me that felt defective, not having somebody around the house to look after me. I look after others and I look after myself. I don't need looking after.

Which was what I was discussing with my friend at the Gold Coast. We know how to provide support.

We're not instructed how to ask for it.

My aunt put something rather profound on her facebook page today. My aunt is going through a bit of a time at the moment as well.

“Fear distorts our perception of ourselves so that we seem weaker than we really are. It distorts the size of our problems so that they seem huge and undefeatable."

She forgot to mention that when we feel weak and problem ridden we don't want to burden others with the journey. It doesn't matter how distorted the fear or the problems may be. Is it the fear of being rejected or the fear of seeming weak?

I've got some more pondering to do. I've never thought about this.

I don't know how to express a basic human need. If I want comfort, I cuddle a cat.

Don't they say that identifying a problem is the first step in solving it.

Watch this space.